Add BookmarkBanker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle against World Poverty
In 1983, Muhammad Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with miniscule loans. Based on the belief that credit is a basic human right, not the privilege of a few, Grameen Bank now provides over 2.5 billion dollars of micro-loans to more than two million families in rural Bangladesh. Ninety-four percent of Yunus's clients are women, and repayment rates are nearly 100 percent. It was an idea born on a day in 1976 when he loaned $27 from his own... (show more)
In 1983, Muhammad Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with miniscule loans. Based on the belief that credit is a basic human right, not the privilege of a few, Grameen Bank now provides over 2.5 billion dollars of micro-loans to more than two million families in rural Bangladesh. Ninety-four percent of Yunus's clients are women, and repayment rates are nearly 100 percent. It was an idea born on a day in 1976 when he loaned $27 from his own pocket to forty-two stool makers living in a tiny village. Banker to the Poor is Muhammad Yunus's memoir of how he changed his life to help the world's poor. In it he traces the journey that led him to rethink the economic relationship between rich and poor and recounts the challenges he and his colleagues faced in founding Grameen. (show less)
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I first heard Yunus interviewed on NPR back in the 90s and was blown away by the concept of micro-lending and how it was enabling people living on the street to find a way of filling a need in their culture, and to become self-sufficient, and self-sustaining in the face of poverty. Then I lost track of him in the late 90s, and didn't hear of him again until about 1992. By then, his micro-lending had already changed the world -- and it's still doing it. This is probably the quietest econo... (show more)
I first heard Yunus interviewed on NPR back in the 90s and was blown away by the concept of micro-lending and how it was enabling people living on the street to find a way of filling a need in their culture, and to become self-sufficient, and self-sustaining in the face of poverty. Then I lost track of him in the late 90s, and didn't hear of him again until about 1992. By then, his micro-lending had already changed the world -- and it's still doing it. This is probably the quietest economic revolution in the history of the planet -- changing poverty into sustainable existence; creating entrepreneurs out of street people; and managing to NOT make anyone else poor or sorry in the process. Muhammad Yunus has remade capitalism in the image of the many, rather than the few. That's what Nobel Prizes are for -- meliorism. Changing the world for the better. Consider this book the "meliorist's cookbook." (show less)
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This is the most amazing book I have read in a long time. It is the most touching story about what started as a personal fight against poverty, and ended up becoming an international effort to end poverty. Written by Nobel Peace Prize and founder of the Grameen bank Muhammad Yunus, it is mandatory reading material for all those who sometimes feel they could change the world, starting little by little helping those in your community first...
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